


▯ behind closed doors ▮

by sonshineandshowers



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Mystery, Reflection, exploratory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers
Summary: Wherein the main character of this story is the Milton mansion, with another perspective you figure out along the way. Exactly how many hiding places are there in that labyrinth?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	▯ behind closed doors ▮

Ainsley and Malcolm’s childhood bedrooms had been reimagined a few times. Microscopes, globes, and figure drawing references got boxed away in favor of dark book bindings, paintings, eyes. Soundproofing reached from the walls as another thing out to get him. Thuds from thrown objects and crashes against the floor escaped the barrier until he up and left one night with his things. After redecorating, no evidence of his terrors remained.

Color continued to pour out of the other room in whatever shade the young girl imagined. When one spoiled, another covered it up quick enough. A fresh coat of beige was layered on after the final violet hue, and the woman’s spark left over several trips for her belongings.

Both of them had been long gone from the house, only returning for mandated obligations.

So when looking for a shoebox became the day’s pressing task, there was only one place it could be — up in the attic behind some beam where the kids may have stowed it when they were younger.

Everything else had been burned or otherwise disposed, the rooms transformed like nothing had ever happened.

Ten years of marriage up in smoke, vented through the roof so only astute eyes would know of its existence.

* * *

If looking carefully, the handles were discoverable. Small knobs jutting out from the otherwise smooth wall.

The hall closet held coats, boots, stray umbrellas. Some of them left from guests who never returned to get them. Some of them new like they hadn’t had a chance to go out yet. Gifts, maybe? A stray purchase of _oh, could use that someday_ , yet the day hadn’t come?

She winnowed the stack down to three. Kept the favorite wooden-handled umbrella that sheltered a small family. Aligned the spare coats. Swept up a card with a stray phone number scribbled on the back of a pharmaceutical company’s contacts.

Shut the door, leaving it all in the past.

* * *

The past never did seem to find a way to stay hidden forever. Behind a layer of drywall some twenty years, and it still came back. Exactly the same, yet with considerably more dust.

The rotary phone was first to leave the basement office for the trash. Boxes and drop cloths and papers upon papers upon papers…what did that man have to write that was so important?

Clearly not _for my loving wife_ , _my darling daughter_ , or _my boy_.

One page fell to the floor: _pain receptors in the autonomic nervous system_.

She crumpled it up and tossed it into the shred container. Put all the glass jars into recycling. Tossed anything that wouldn’t be able to find a second home.

Who would want the possessions of a serial killer?

Would they even know? Could the grooves in the desk prove the deplorable things he had done? It was too nice a piece to throw out.

She let the movers take care of it. Hopefully, the charity wouldn’t notice.

Everything was being donated under a pseudonym anyway.

Like most things, this was better done in secret.

* * *

Secret tunnel? Near the subway?

Did anyone have floor plans to this labyrinth?

Were the Miltons smuggling booze during Prohibition? Was it a way to sneak people in and out of parties? An opportunity to escape into the night?

A way to bring corpses inside?

Or were they alive, and the killing happened there? Under the roof with the whole family sleeping upstairs, she in her ensuite.

Would they have been next?

If he’d wanted it, they all would’ve been dead already.

How was it so easy for him to murder a stranger, yet so difficult to kill his own? Access to all of them was far simpler.

The permanently stained concrete looked back at her. Leftover lamps. A smattering of tools.

What had they been used for? Prying information out of fingers? Smashing warnings into unsuspecting toes? Beating the strongest willed into submission so their hollers didn’t reach upstairs?

Or was the whole basement so secluded none of them ever had any hope?

Was that what it felt like to Malcolm?

None of them had been in when everything went to hell. She was out stocking up on groceries, with Adolpho providing the transportation.

Jessica and Ainsley were alone.

Would anything have been different if they had stayed in?

If only she could sweep the whole day into the bin with the floor’s refuse.

* * *

He swept Jessica off her feet.

Cleaning the sheets, she was left with the remnants of an evening tryst turned parade into the dining room. Offering coffee after coffee until both kids left. Giving the smarmy man his coat so he could see his way out.

Was happiness a fantasy?

It sure didn’t look like Jessica coming down later than usual, downing her own coffee ’til she could see straight. Rushing to clean the sheets so she could go back to bed if she didn’t feel up to the day. Delivering day after day of bad news as it cascaded from the precinct.

It seemed closer to laughing in the living room, a vibrant sound that didn’t get enough presence in the house. Kissing in the entryway, a distant past finally reaching out to touch the present six feet of Lieutenant. Lingering at the door long after he had left, watching out the window as he pulled away.

The walls had eyes in the Milton home.

* * *

A witness statement.

The police had asked everyone in the house. She was last to go, ensuring the others were tended to first. The only one waiting in the wings of the study.

They’d ask, “What did you see?”

And she’d have to answer a truth that didn’t warrant repeating. Ainsley had murdered a man in cold blood.

Simpler.

Ainsley had murdered a man.

Simpler.

Ainsley had stabbed him.

Simpler.

She saw a knife. There was blood.

Simpler.

Guess Jessica needs a new rug.

Would the blood soak into the home forever, become one with its inhabitants?

Were any of them ever really safe?

What secret compartments hadn’t she found?

“Luisa, we’re ready for you,” a detective directed to the kitchen come private conversation room.

Answers would need to wait.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
